


I'm sacrificing my freedom (to get somebody to see me)

by HopeSilverheart



Series: Dark Magnus [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: (I guess?) - Freeform, Alec Lightwood Loves Magnus Bane, Alec Lightwood-centric, Angst, Dark Magnus Bane, Introspection, M/M, Magnus Bane is messed up, Not Canon Compliant, but he cares too, in his own way, short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24296803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeSilverheart/pseuds/HopeSilverheart
Summary: Magnus Bane is the most beautiful man Alec has ever met. He’s also the most dangerous.Somehow, those two sides of the warlock don’t cancel each other out. In fact, for the first time in his life, Alec sees how appealing danger can be. Magnus Bane could kill him with a single flick of his wrist, and it makes Alec want him more.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: Dark Magnus [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1761268
Comments: 14
Kudos: 188





	I'm sacrificing my freedom (to get somebody to see me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AceOnIce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOnIce/gifts).



> title from ben platt's 'rain'

Magnus Bane is the most beautiful man Alec has ever met. He’s also the most dangerous.

Somehow, those two aspects of the warlock don’t cancel each other out. In fact, for the first time in his life, Alec sees how appealing danger can be. Magnus Bane could kill him with a single flick of his wrist, and it makes Alec want him more.

The dance they partake in is entrancing. Magnus teases and flirts, and Alec reciprocates just enough to show his interest but not enough to commit to anything. There is music somewhere, but Alec knows it’s out of his control. Even his own steps are part of Magnus’ plan.

The man makes him feel free and Alec takes it all in greedily. He spends time with the warlock even when his parents glare at him disapprovingly. He sneaks out and lets Magnus pull him into his web until he’s too tangled to get out of it.

He should be terrified. He shouldn’t want this man, this killer with cold eyes who looks at Alec as though he’s a particularly fascinating work of art. But Alec has never been strong. All he’s ever wanted is to be seen as worthy, and when Magnus stares at him intensely, he thinks he might have found the only person capable of fulfilling his darkest desire.

They skirt around each other for months, exchanging smiles and trading touches, leaning in close but never close enough. Magnus’ eyes are darker than anything Alec has ever seen, but the man is the brightest part of his day.

They fit together perfectly, and Alec wonders. He wonders what it would feel like to wake up next to the man, to hold him and cherish him and show him how much he cares. He wonders if Magnus would let him kiss him, caress him, make love to him. He wonders and wonders some more, waiting for the right time.

It never comes, but Alec doesn’t think it matters.

Magnus tells him, one day, that he wants him. Alec falls faster than he has ever done anything in his life. He surrenders to Magnus, accepting his attentions fully and letting his lover guide him through their strange relationship.

Their first dance was slow and teasing. This one was fast, passionate, and intoxicating. Alec can barely breathe when he’s around Magnus, can barely think, can barely remember his own name. All he knows is his lover, wrapped around him, heart beating slowly and steadily. He only knows Magnus, Magnus, _Magnus_.

He loves him, he thinks. How could he not? Alexander Lightwood has been doomed to love Magnus Bane ever since he met the deadly man with an even deadlier smile.

No matter how many people tell him to step away and forget about the man who stole his heart and mind, Alec stays.

He stays even when Magnus doesn’t return his kind words, even when Magnus keeps him at an arm’s length, even when the older man refuses to share his past. He stays, and he cherishes, and he lets himself forget about all the ways in which their relationship is wrong.

He learns to ignore the whispers and murmurs and sneers. People think he’s weak for loving someone as unlovable as Magnus Bane. He doesn’t care; he’s always been the weakest Lightwood. At least this way, he’s weak for the most powerful man in the world.

At least this way, he has someone at his side, defending him.

Magnus kills for him. Alec knows this, sees the blood on his hands after he murders a shadowhunter who had insulted them, but he learns to ignore that, too. He has Magnus, and Magnus cares for him in his own way. Alec won’t stop him, not if it means losing him in the process.

His family look at him differently, worriedly, they ask him if he’s alright, if Magnus is treating him right. His answer never changes.

Magnus treats him like a king. He pampers him, spoils him, wraps him up in blankets, makes love to him until he can’t think straight. No one will ever understand why that’s enough for Alec. No one but his lover.

Alec never needed an explanation for Magnus’ strange coldness, for the way he distanced himself from everyone – Alec included – but the warlock gives him one anyways. He doesn’t talk about his past or his difficulties with love or anything like that, but it means just as much to Alec.

They’re in bed together when he whispers it to him.

“You want the kind of love that clicks like a key into a lock, but I don’t have any of that to give you. All I know is that in over a century, you’re the only person I’ve found worth saving.”

After that, Alec makes sure Magnus knows he wants him and loves him even if the warlock can’t offer him the same thing in return. He helps him understand that as long as Alec holds the key to Magnus’ heart, it doesn’t matter if he can’t unlock it. As long as they belong to each other, Alec will care for Magnus.

It’s stupid.

Magnus Bane is beautiful and dangerous and everything Alec was once afraid of. He is sin and death and grace and Alec shouldn’t love him. But he does.

So he lets himself fall again. He ignores the pain he feels once he realises Magnus will never truly love him. He ignores the hope and the fears and the insecurities, lets himself fall even if it destroys him along the way.

It’s all worth it, he thinks, if he gets to kiss Magnus’ soft lips every night. It’s all worth it, if he gets to feel Magnus’ heartbeat as the man touches him tenderly and harshly and protectively and _possessively_.

At the end of the day, he belongs to Magnus Bane the lover, just as much as he belongs to Magnus Bane the killer.

He never stops whispering words of love against the warlock’s chest when he sleeps, and he never stops saying them out loud when Magnus needs to hear them. He never stops loving the blue magic that had enthralled him in the first place nor the man to whom it belongs.

Magnus Bane is too broken to give Alec the love he deserves, so Alec makes sure he has enough for the both of them. He breaks his own heart over and over again, all for Magnus.

He loves him more than he’s ever loved anyone, and he will for as long as Magnus stares at him like he’s worth something. It’s wrong, and messed up, and Alec knows he shouldn’t be happy.

But he is.

**Author's Note:**

> heya guys! Thank you for reading this fic! I wrote it pretty quickly and didn't edit it, so excuse any mistakes you might have spotted! This was inspired by a prompt Amelia (AceOnIce) brought up on the Malec Discord (The two sentences Magnus says in the fic, which are apparently a quote from Carmilla). Inspiration struck and this happened, even though it's late and I can barely see straight x) Still, I hope you enjoyed! This isn't exactly a happy ending, but I think it's hopeful enough? Who knows. Most of my fics are fluffier than this, but this one just really wanted to come out. 
> 
> Love, Julie.
> 
> (find me on tumblr @hopesilverheart)


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